News & events

Joining forces for ITER | 12/11/2014

CCFE was well represented at three key ITER physics meetings at Cadarache in France recently.

Group meetings of the ITPA (International Tokamak Physics Activity) were held at the CEA Cadarache and ITER sites. The ITPA exists to co-ordinate international tokamak research to answer questions of direct relevance to the next-step ITER fusion project. The committee and seven topical groups bring together fusion researchers from around the world on activities that can support ITER preparations.

CCFE's David Keeling, who was at one of the meetings, explains how the co-operation works: “Often it takes the form of joint experiments – the community agrees to carry out similar experiments on two or more devices to cover a much wider parameter space than can be achieved by any one experiment in isolation.

“Similarly, multi-machine databases of particular results can be built, in which trends can be identified with much greater accuracy than results from single machines.

“With direct input from the ITER Organization, these meetings ensure that the worldwide community is focussed on the goal of the success of ITER and beyond.”

This time around, the Pedestal and Edge Physics group, the Transport and Confinement Group and the Integrated Operation Scenarios group met and included a morning's joint session in which all three groups met together for a wider discussion of activities to be undertaken in the next six to 12 months. The picture shows the delegates during a tour of the ITER construction site.